


The Treadmill

by Amberdreams



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The French Mistake, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Jensen Ackles, Men of Letters Bunker, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:52:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberdreams/pseuds/Amberdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gadreel sets a trap before he leaves the Bunker, and eventually Dean triggers it. With Dean missing, Sam desperately searches for a way to get his brother back. Meanwhile in another dimension, Warner Brothers picks up the Pilot for a television series called Supernatural, a show about a lone hunter searching for his missing father. </p><p>In an infinite number of universes, there must be one where this happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Treadmill

**Author's Note:**

> A massive thank you to my fabulous artist [](http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/profile)[dollarformyname](http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/), who picked my lonely little wall-flower summary as a second SDMB project, and thus saved me from languishing artless. Not only that, but if I could have picked my own artist, she'd have been top of my list so - Jackpot!!! Go and check out her [](http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/68544.html)**Art Master Post** http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/68544.html and shower her with love and cookies for being so awesome. (If it isn't unlocked yet, it will be very soon).  
>  Thanks also to my most excellent beta [](http://kalliel.livejournal.com/profile)[kalliel](http://kalliel.livejournal.com/) who not only helped me fix lots of inconsistencies and confusion, but gave me a massive amount of encouragement - thanks babe, I wasn't sure this whole idea worked until you reassured me it did! Any remaining errors are totally down to me.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780307052)

**The Treadmill**

In an infinite number of universes, there must be one where this happens.

Before Gadreel abandons the Men of Letters bunker to stew in its mixed stench of burnt flesh, guilt and sorrow, he has one last task to do. He walks into Sam’s empty room, so Spartan and impersonal, and with a few quick strokes of his grace he sets his snare. Because it’s inevitable that Dean will enter here eventually, even though Gadreel is taking the younger brother’s body away.

Gadreel isn’t evil or malicious. He has come to grudgingly respect Dean Winchester, even to like the man a little. Gadreel doesn’t want to kill Dean, but he feels it is just a matter of time before either Dean will come after him, or Metatron will force his hand and demand Dean’s death as he demanded the prophet’s. This way is kinder. This way, Dean won’t ever know what has been done to him. He will never even be aware enough to be grateful for the second chance he is being offered. But that’s fine. Gadreel is not looking for instant gratification, just the satisfaction of a job well done.

Gadreel completes the last symbol and steps back to admire his handiwork.

“One day you will thank me for this mercy, Dean Winchester.”

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15158778694)

Jensen wakes up in his own bed, in his own apartment, in LA, alone. Which is as it should be. Everything is normal, nothing is out of place, apart from the crappy country song that woke him up.

He sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, wondering where that annoying music is coming from. It takes him a couple more seconds to realise it’s his cell phone, not his alarm, and after some undignified scrabbling around in the heap of clothes on the floor he finally manages to dig the offending article out.

By which time, the call has, of course, gone to voicemail.

“Fuck,” Jensen says. His voice sounds unfamiliar, his throat is as dry as Monument Valley. He wavers over which to do first - grab a much-needed coffee or listen to the message - but when he sees the recent caller display says _Danneel_ , he chooses discretion over valour and hits playback.

“Hey, you lazy waste-of-space, wake the hell up and call me back right now. Don’t you even think about getting coffee first, this is important.”

Danneel -- Harris. His agent. Right. Shit, what had he been drinking last night to have forgotten that?

Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Jensen fumbles with the fancy phone and presses call back.

“Jenny! Did I wake you up? Shame on you, still in bed this time in the morning,” Danneel sounds much too bright and breezy for, what time was it anyway? Fucking seven AM! No sane person’s awake at this time without a serious injection of caffeine, preferably administered intravenously.

Which must be why his brain seems to be set on a five second delay. Jensen gropes for something witty but the best he can come up with is a mumbled _fuck you_ , which merely causes Danneel to laugh, heartless witch.

“This better be good, Harris. Unless you can feed me coffee via wireless signals?”

“Oh, it’s better than good, darling. Remember how much you moaned and grumbled about that audition for the new show filming in Vancouver?”

“Of course I remember. The lead role in a horror series? They could be filming in Outer Mongolia and I’d have been interested. Wait…what…”

“Yep. They want you. You’ve got the part of Dean Winchester. Congratulations!”

Jensen can’t restrain himself and lets out a loud whoop of joy.

“Danni, I love you!”

“Oh yeah, now he loves me,” she retorts, but he can hear the smile in her voice.

He’s barely listening as Danneel runs through a long list of details, contracts to be signed, yada yada yada. He only tunes back in at the welcome news that the pilot is to be filmed in LA, due to the studios working round Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s availability.

After Danni hangs up Jensen whoops again, fist pumping the air, lit up by his triumph as much as the Californian sunshine streaming through his window.

Lead actor, top billing for the very first time. He’d known when he auditioned that this is only a pilot, and his initial contract is to deliver a mere six episodes out of a potential twenty. Danni confirmed anything over and above that would be dependent on the success of the pilot and following episodes – but it doesn’t matter.  It’s just a little bit of luck and some good ratings away from success, and that’s good enough for him.

He can’t wait to tell Chris and Steve, and grabs his phone again, thumbing through the display to get to his contacts. He hesitates momentarily over his music playlist. _Who the hell’s been messing with my cell?_ He wonders, looking at the unfamiliar mix of pop and country tunes. _That explains the awful ringtone_ , he thinks, as he scrolls back to his contacts and picks out Steve’s number. _Bet it was Chris, the fucker._ He makes a mental note to load some classic rock later.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15158778694)

The pilot goes well. Jensen takes to playing Dean like he was born for the part, and watching Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Sam Smith slot into their roles of John and Mary Winchester is strangely soothing. It’s funny, but those names resonate with him, they seem much more fitting than the version he saw in the earlier script read-through, when his screen-parents had been called Jack and Moira. Jensen isn’t supposed to be on set those days, but no one says anything when he turns up and hangs around behind the camera, just absorbing the more experienced actors’ seemingly effortless techniques. In between takes, the three ‘Winchesters’ chat about the business as if they’ve known each other for years, and Jensen can’t help contrasting the relaxed atmosphere on the Supernatural set with the edgy competitiveness of Smallville.  Maybe it’s the difference between playing the lead as opposed to playing an inconsistently written love interest-slash-villain.

Whatever the reason, Jensen’s loving every minute of this new show. Being a good ole Texan boy, he’s used to handling firearms, but even he is surprised at the ease with which he locks n’ loads the sawn off shotgun and handles the pretty Colt 1911 as if they were extensions of his body. He doesn’t have to think about it, and the mother-of-pearl grip of the Colt fits his hand like his own fingers had rubbed the well-worn grooves into it.

He even makes suggestions for improvements to the props and storylines, like adding salt to the shotgun capsules for shooting ghosts.

“Makes sense, right? Take those fuckers out before they get too close!”

“Great idea, Jensen.” Eric Kripke slaps him on the back. “We’ll build that in.”

Jensen beams.

So by the time Jensen first steps onto the Supernatural set in Vancouver, he’s keyed up and full of positive excitement.  This feels different from the Pilot, more real somehow.  His home for the next eight weeks or so, maybe longer if everything goes well.

“So, the monster this week is pretty ugly, I think you’ll like how badass Dean gets to be in taking the fucker out, ” Eric says as he and David Nutter walk Jensen round the site, introducing him to various members of the (hopefully permanent) crew.

“Yeah, a Wendigo, right?  Such a cool concept; I loved the script.” Jensen says, and Eric’s eyes light up.

“I know, right?  We get to explore all these urban myths as well as some real Americana folklore, and later in the season I’m hoping to explore some even more scary stuff, if we get the go-ahead from the Studio.”

Jensen  laughs.  “Like ghosts and flesh eating creatures that live in the woods eating campers aren’t scary enough?”

Eric just grins, his large bald forehead gleaming in the pale Vancouver sun.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

Dean needs a drink.  Fuck that. He really needs a fifth or two.

Getting rid of Gadreel had solved one problem only to create several more. Dean had intended to walk away, let Sam have the space he so clearly needed, but somehow they’d ended up trying to work together again.

It’s late when Dean parks up inside the bunker’s garage and switches of the Impala’s engine. The void left by the rumble of her engine hangs heavy in the still air, and neither brother has the inclination to fill it with words. They have the old easy patterns to fall back on while hunting, but once the job’s done, the tension returns, hitting Dean like a semi. Dean doesn’t know how to be with this Sam who isn’t his brother any more. Sam’s bulk fills his place in the Impala the same as it ever did, but any warmth Dean feels from the proximity is merely physical, while the chill in the air between them is ever-present and overwhelming.

Dean can’t seem to unclench his hands from the steering wheel.

Sam hesitates for a millisecond before he gets out of the car and Dean’s jaw is so tight he thinks his teeth might break. Then Sam’s gone, disappeared into one of the bunker’s many corridors. So Dean just sits for a while, utterly at a loss to know what to do next.

Eventually he has to move or he’ll be stuck to his Baby’s smooth leather seats forever. Besides. He still needs that fucking drink.

Once inside, he finds an inch of gut rot left in a bottle he’d forgotten about at the back of one of the mahogany cabinets in the War Room, and downs it straight from the bottle, then looks around for more. In the kitchen there’s an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue he’d been saving for a special occasion, in memory of Rufus. As if any occasion gets special in his life, Dean thinks bitterly. Dean grabs the bottle and wanders aimlessly towards his room, planning to drink until he can’t feel anything any more, but he pauses when he reaches Sam’s door.

He trails a hand across the smooth tiled wall towards the blank wood, as if taking a circuitous route will help him get the courage to face his brother. His grip tightens on the bottle while his other hand reaches around the metal door handle, almost against his will.

Dean opens the door without knocking and walks inside.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15778732435)

Vancouver is a beautiful city but Jensen can’t seem to settle. Supernatural’s filming schedule is punishing, and shouldn’t be leaving him any energy for fretting, but even after shooting fourteen- to seventeen-hour days and nights, not getting back to his apartment until the small hours of the morning, Jensen still feels wired all the time. Antsy and agitated. Though he has a stunt double, Jensen insists on attempting all the stunts himself, in a bid to get rid of some of the excess drive he’s feeling.  Nothing seems to work. At the end of the first few days of filming, Jensen is climbing the walls, and even his new crew have noticed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Danni,” he says. Phoning Danneel was a desperate play, but Jensen was at the end of his tether, and Chris would just laugh at him. “I can’t sleep, I’m restless and don’t seem to be able to unwind.”

“You could try yoga, Jennybean,” Danneel suggests, and Jensen grimaces. He hates it when she calls him that. And really? Yoga?

Finally, in desperation, he decides Danni might be onto something. Obviously he’s much too macho for yoga, so the only other option is to join a gym.  Maybe a couple of hours a day pounding the treadmill and lifting weights will cure this stupid feeling that there is a big hole in this life, when he’s busier than he’s ever been. He’s never felt like this before that he can remember, so maybe it’s just that he’s homesick for LA. Though why he’d miss a polluted, overcrowded, sprawling city, he isn’t quite sure. Still, it would be even more stupid to be missing Texas when he hasn’t lived there for years, so…homesickness is a theory and it’s all he’s got.

Of course, finding the time for the gym is an issue, but given that he’s not sleeping, that most of the shooting on the Wendigo episode is night time, and the Gym ’n’ Trim is open twenty four seven - he manages.

On his second visit, Jensen discovers the virtual training program on the aerobic machines, and is pleased to find one of those takes him round various locations in Los Angeles. Maybe seeing the familiar streets will help his possible homesickness as much as the exercise, he thinks as he climbs onto the treadmill, and presses the buttons to set the pace and the route. The belt whirs into life and he starts running at an easy pace, the screen flipping from a map of the various locations to a street view. Someone must have run all these routes with a steadicam, because the filming doesn’t bounce like a hand-held, and the quality is so good it’s almost easy to believe you are really on that sidewalk instead on a spinning belt. The route begins on Hollywood Boulevard, and he’s mentally ticking off the landmarks as his virtual jog progresses along, following the trail of the filled and unfilled stars embedded in the paving slabs.

One day, Ackles, one day.

Absently he notes that the video must have been recorded a year or so ago, as he passes a couple of buildings with hoardings up that were open and trading when he’d left LA. Sure enough, as the scene moves from Hollywood Boulevard to the Sunset Strip, he sees billboards for shows and films that had already aired. It must have been recorded early morning too, as the sun is up but the streets are relatively quiet, just a few tourists and LA locals out shopping. The first time he runs the route he plugs his earphones into the machine, so he gets the traffic noise and passers by shouting random stuff. A scene change takes him out of town to the sandy paths that climb up to the Hollywood sign, something he’d never bothered doing in all the time he’d lived there.  It’s strange to stand at the top behind the sign and see all of Los Angeles laid out before him. He guesses that his own apartment must be somewhere down there…

He’s been using the gym machines for nearly a week and _Wendigo_ is all but wrapped up when Jensen starts noticing something odd happening with the exercise videos. He thinks at first that the software must have been updated, because on Sunset Boulevard near Chateau Marmont, he sees a huge hoarding advertising Batman Begins, then a bit farther down, the billboard poster for Nip/Tuck has been replaced with one for a new season of Numb3rs. On Hollywood Boulevard one of the restaurants that had been boarded up for renovation is now open, and some of the street-people he had come to recognise have been replaced by new faces. The young black guy who shouts _whatcha doin’_ has gone from the street corner by the Scientology headquarters, and instead he passes an ancient white woman wheeling what looks like her worldly goods in a battered shopping trolley. The tourists near the Gazebo are watching a fire juggler, instead of the guy dressed as Darth Maul.

The scene runs through its usual rotation, morphing from Hollywood Boulevard to the Sunset Strip. Jensen’s puzzlement turns to shock and he nearly jumps out of his skin when some tall dude suddenly steps right into his path. Even though he knows he’s not really on the sidewalk in LA and therefore in no danger of actually bumping into anyone, he can’t help side-swerving and nearly falls off the back of the treadmill, only saving himself from an embarrassing injury by a quick hand-grab of the side rail. Heart beating uncomfortably fast, Jensen straddles the still turning belt and tries to calm down.

Fuck.  What the hell was that? After taking a surreptitious look around to make sure nobody had noticed his near prattfall, Jensen stares at the video screen. There’s no sign of the guy, and of course there wouldn’t be. While Jensen was steadying himself the program has been running on by itself, and it’s already reached the House of Blues where this section ends. The next part is the dirt track in the Hollywood Hills and the Hollywood sign, and sure enough, the road scene fades as it always does, and the yellow sandy-coloured track opens up in front of him. Any minute the overweight guy with the slim girlfriend will pass him on their way down the hill. Jensen slows the treadmill down in order to step back on, and jogs the rest of his session without any incident.

That night, his dreams are haunted by the stranger’s face. That startled look he’d glimpsed for a second before it morphed into something akin to recognition. In his dream the guy shoves his hair back off his face and reaches out towards Jensen, calling a name he can’t hear because he’s plugged into his own music and it’s playing too loud. When he wakes he doesn’t remember what the dream was about, but he’s left feeling lonely.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

Sam lets the latest useless book drop back onto the mahogany table in frustration. The impact echoes in the empty chamber, and Sam winces. The Bunker is a hollow, lonely place without Dean. It’s too quiet and Sam hates how the empty spaces are still achingly full of his brother’s presence, and worse, the faint smell of burning. Sam knows the scent of Kevin’s death is going to linger in his nostrils forever. He’s sure Dean would tell him he’s imagining it, but the obstinate fucker isn’t here to tell Sam anything, is he.

Instead all he has is unwanted advice from the empty space that Gadreel (and Lucifer) left behind. Empty space inside him that filled up with the dead - his own little family of companions - there to reinforce his guilt whenever he failed to concentrate hard enough to keep them out.

Goddamit. Sam’s head is all over the place. He’s still angry with his brother for orchestrating the mind rape with Gadreel, and for Dean’s refusal to see that there was anything wrong with his decision to save Sam by any means yet again.  Now on top of that, Sam has to contend with his reckless idiot of a brother falling into the booby trap the renegade angel left behind.

But this is not the burning anger Sam’s familiar with, and knows how to turn into a weapon. This is a quiet, understated frustration which is deep rooted in cold despair. He can’t wrap it round him in a warm self-righteous blanket, he can’t use it to fuel the kind of honest wrath that helped him survive Dean’s trip to Hell.

Sam stands up, too restless to stay sat at the table any longer. His research is getting him nowhere, anyhow. After pacing around for a few wasted moments, Sam finds himself drawn back to his room where Dean had vanished. He stares at the Enochian symbols, clearly visible now they’ve been triggered. He is willing them to give up their secrets, but they are as silent as the rest of the Bunker. He looks up at the blank ceiling as if he could pierce the layers of brick and concrete to see the stars.

“Castiel!”

Sam tries calling the angel again, though he’s tried so many times now, he has even less expectation of getting a response from Cas than he does from the painted runes. He’s tried many times, inside the Bunker and outside, where there are no wards, but Castiel has disappeared again, and Sam can’t blame him. Metatron’s megalomania has both Heaven and earth in disarray, the bands of fallen angels are lost and afraid, and all the more dangerous for it; and all Sam has to offer is yet another Winchester rescue mission and a head full of ghosts that aren’t even real.

“Guess you’re just going to have to do without your angel friends and solve this one on your own.”

Sam doesn’t startle at Kevin’s voice, or its bitterness. This is too common an occurrence to be surprising any more - but his shoulders tense and hunch just a little more when those familiar tones are joined by a more occasional visitor.

“Come away, Kevin. I don’t know why you insist on talking to someone who was responsible for getting you killed!” Mrs Tran sounds shriller than she had in life, and Sam winces at the sharp edges of his sub conscious. He doesn’t give himself a break, ever.

Except when he does.

“But, Mom, I can help. See, Sam was right in thinking he’s seen those Enochian symbols before somewhere. Last time they were slightly different though, because that was a non specific gate. _This_ one opened a one-way gate that was tuned to a single person, but that doesn’t mean it’s totally useless. I bet we could communicate through it. We just need to open a window into the dimension where Gadreel’s trapped Dean, give Dean the relevant information, then all Dean needs to is replicate this gate designed for him on his side, step through and voila!”

Well, shit. Why hadn’t Sam been able to come up with that insight without Kevin’s and Mrs Tran’s voices in his head? He practically runs back to the library, filled with a new purpose.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15158778694)

For some reason, filming _Dead in the Water_ becomes a tough one for Jensen, and he can’t really put his finger on why.  The crew are great, everybody is gelling really well as a team, and Jensen is full of admiration for the skill of Kim Manners as their director. He’d enjoyed working with David Nutter on the first two episodes, but Kim is something special.

Jensen and Amy get on like the proverbial house on fire, especially after they discover their common childhood backgrounds in Texas. Yet he is continually nagged by the feeling that there is something crucial missing. Whether it’s from the story they are filming or from his own life, he just doesn’t know – but whatever it is, it’s bugging the hell out of him.

On the Wednesday, they are filming on location at Buntzen Lake, which is doubling up for the fictional Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin.

“You ready, Jensen, Nico?” Kim asks. Jensen looks down at the diminutive figure grinning up at him like some sort of wicked pixie. Kim is barely taller than Nico, the kid who’s playing Amy’s fictional son, Lucas. Jensen already likes Nico a lot, and grins back.

“Hell yeah, been looking forward to this one. It’s going to be epic. Right, kiddo?” He turns and grabs Nico’s shoulder and pulls the kid in for a one armed hug. When Nico hugs back Jensen feels ridiculously warm inside. He’s going to have to hold onto that moment, as it’s the only time he’s likely to feel warm for the rest of the day, as they prepare for the dramatic rescue-from-drowning scene. It might be high summer but this is Canada, and the lake waters are freezing cold, cold enough to take his breath away as he lowers himself down off the jetty. He pants a bit, cursing until his lungs acclimatise, and he’s ready for them to drop Nico down into his arms. Nico’s looking a bit scared, so Jensen takes time to murmur reassurances into the kid’s ear, and does his best to share some of his body heat before they get completely submerged.

The first dunking is brief, just enough to get them wet and ready for the main event. Jensen hopes this will be a single take, as the water is so fucking cold.  Treading water fully clothed, boots and all is challenging, and holding Nico’s dead weight too makes it that much harder. And yet the sense of responsibility feels strangely familiar and comforting.

“Take deep breaths now, boys! Ready in 3, 2, 1…” Kim yells from the jetty. Jensen tenses, feels Nico’s ribs expanding as they both do as instructed and breathe in.

Even though he knows what’s coming next, there is still a moment of pure shock when the two scuba divers grab his ankles and pull the two of them deep this time. The lake waters are dark and for a second, instead of Nico McEown’s rounded face, Jensen sees a younger version of the stranger in his dreams staring up at him, eyes wide and scared. He almost forgets to strike out for the surface when his ankles are released, then pure survival instinct kicks in and he surges up towards the light.

They break the surface and Jensen’s mouth is open wide, gulping in air. He grips Nico tight, making sure the kid’s face is held high, that he’s breathing okay too. He shakes water from his ears and hears someone shouting ‘cut’, then the crew are all clapping and cheering like he’d rescued the kid for real. Then Nico’s squirming out of his arms and splashing him in the face and it’s on. Kim allows them a couple of minutes letting off steam before calling them all back to order for an extra underwater shot. Nico’s off the hook for this one, and is bustled off somewhere onshore to get warm and dry, while Jensen goes under again for a shot of Dean casting about in the murk, searching for Lucas.

Kripke catches Jensen in his trailer while he’s getting changed, slaps him on the back.

“Just dropping off the scripts for the next episode,” Kripke says. “But there might be some changes after today. I really liked how you were with Lucas. I’m starting to think Dean might work better if we give him a companion in his search - you know, someone to protect. Like Dr Who.”

Jensen nods, though the Dr Who reference goes over his head. He doesn’t want to encourage Eric right now, or the writer will want to talk all night, but deep down, he thinks Kripke is right. Dean shouldn’t be alone.

Although Jensen is more than bone-deep weary when they call it a day, he ends up in the gym anyhow, with some vague thought that a workout will get his blood flowing and chase the lingering cold away. With hindsight, not one of his brightest ideas.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

Kevin was right. Fuck, of course he was, because Kevin is Sam, just Sam picking out the right memory, that’s all. The real Kevin is dead, a stain on the floor, ash in the wind and a tarnish on Sam’s soul he can never burn away.

Sam finds the right book, and the right Enochian, but there are warnings emblazoned all over the margins of the ancient text. This isn’t going to be easy. Of course not.

All the voices inside (and a few of those outside) Sam’s head are clamouring and bickering until he can’t stand it any more.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Yelling at illusions shouldn’t help, but somehow, it does. Silence falls with a sigh like a blanket of snow sliding off a roof. Sam shivers as if the snow is real.

Castiel might have siphoned off Gadreel’s residual grace but Sam still feels _occupied_.

It takes Sam several attempts and probably way too much blood before he finds a combination of symbols that works.  Sam’s room where Gadreel had set his trap had been largely empty, save for a truckle bed, a sink and a mirror fixed to the wall. Sam’s duffel resides on the floor, and there are a couple of books on the bedside table, but that’s about it. Which makes it even more of a mystery as to why Dean had decided to go in there in the first place. Drawing the Enochian on the mirror is what finally gives Sam the breakthrough he’s been looking for.  He leans wearily on the basin with both bloody hands and stares at the strange scene that unfolds before him.

He’s looking at the inside of a gymnasium, and it’s not a seedy boxing gym, or even one dedicated to the pursuit of macho body-building. No, this gym has carpeted floors and wall length mirrors and shiny electronic exercise machines, and no doubt at peak times is full of corporate douchebags, middle-aged housewives and glamorous chicks in lycra. Apart from that latter thought, it’s one of the unlikeliest places for Dean Winchester to be hanging out in that Sam could ever have imagined.

It actually takes him a moment to recognise Dean, his brother is acting so out of character. Dean’s on one of the treadmills, actually running. He looks good.

There’s a healthy flush on Dean’s freckled cheeks, his gait looks relaxed and easy, his legs and shoulders toned.  Sam’s gaze becomes transfixed by the trickle of fresh sweat running down Dean’s neck and disappearing down the front of the black running vest Dean is wearing.  His Dean wouldn’t normally be caught dead in a fancy singlet and - oh my god, lycra soccer shorts; this is all so twisted up and strange.

Sam feels like a voyeur, tries to stop staring. He blinks and cudgels his brain into working again.

“Well, you got farther than I expected. Clearly I should have made this a harder challenge,” Gadreel is saying. Lucifer nods his agreement. Riot and Bones rush about scattering Sam’s piles of books and bowls of arcane mixtures around the floor with the thoughtless sweeping of their tails.

Sam clenches his fist and winces at the pull on the open wound he’d sliced into his wrist an hour ago. Part of him thinks perhaps he should bind that up. The other part of him doesn’t give a shit. That’s the part of him that is watching Dean, or some version of Dean anyway, through a one-way mirror. Tentatively, Sam reaches out and presses one fingertip to the smooth glass. It’s cool, and feels exactly as a mirror should, but the moment he makes contact, Sam can hear as well as see what is happening on the other side. As if his finger has closed a circuit.

He watches as an attractive thirty-something woman steps up onto the treadmill next to Dean’s.

“Hey, Tina,” Dean smiles at her and Sam frowns. That smile isn’t much like Dean – where’s his brother's much too open appreciation for her obvious charms? The creases in Sam’s forehead deepen when Tina replies.

“Hi Jensen, how’s the training going?”

Dean (Jensen?) is answering, but Sam is only half listening, his mind is whirring, trying to remember why that name sounds so familiar. Then Dean says something about the long hours and a tough filming schedule, and it all slips into place.

That crazy son of a bitch Balthazar, his ridiculous alternate TV show universe with the dopplegangers actors…Damn.

Dean beleives he is Jensen Ackles, the actor. How could that happen? Last time they’d still been themselves in that other universe…Sam’s heart is beating too hard, he can hear his own breathing, too loud and harsh, as if it’s him doing the running instead of Dean. If Dean doesn’t know who he is any more, where does that leave Sam?

Sam allows his hand to fall so he can steady himself by gripping the rim of the washbasin. The loss of contact with the mirror immediately cuts off the sound from the other side. He stares blankly as Dean continues to run nowhere, chatting to the stranger, Tina.

Meg, who for Sam is always the original incarnation who had made herself so at home inside his body, sidles up behind him and drapes herself over his bent back, resting her sharp chin on his shoulder.

“You know what? It pains me to say it, but he looks happy, doesn’t he?” She observes. Sam can feel her teeth pressing against his skin when she smiles. He ignores her but can’t help looking back into the mirror at Dean. Meg’s right. Dean does look relaxed and happy. The usual tautness of his jaw isn’t there, the tired lines around his eyes are smoothed out so they are barely visible, and the smile he’s giving Tina appears genuine. He looks years younger than the Dean Sam last saw, the one who was back to hardly sleeping and was always nursing a half empty bottle of jack.  The one newly scarred with a mark that could mean nothing but trouble – for Dean and maybe for the world.

This Dean’s forearm is bare, his skin new-made and perfect. Yet not for one second does Sam doubt that this is his brother.

Suddenly inexplicably angry, Sam swipes his hand across the surface of the glass, smearing the symbols and the view of the other world is lost. He shakes Meg off and blindly storms out of his room, Riot and Bones flanking him, always faithful. Meg’s laugh stalks him as he flees down the corridor, and he can hear Lucifer and Gadreel discussing his petulant behaviour. He can only be thankful that Kevin and his mom are nowhere to be seen.

Sam ends up in Dean’s room, because he can’t sleep in his own room any more. He flings himself down on Dean’s precious memory foam and rolls over onto his back, staring at the blank ceiling.

_“If the situation was reversed, and I was dying, you’d do the same thing…”_

“But that’s the problem, Dean. I wouldn’t do the same as you; I wouldn’t bend every rule to save you – not if I thought you _wanted_ to let go. And now, it’s even harder because you aren’t dying this time, you aren’t even suffering. Where you are, it’s better than heaven. If that world is anything like the one Balthazar sent us to, there’s no angels, no demons, no ghosts or monsters. No fucking Mark of Cain, whatever that means.”

Sam is silent for a moment. Riot whines a little, and Bones’ cold wet nose pokes its way under Sam’s hand where it rests on the edge of the bed.

“Nothing to kill, and nothing to sacrifice yourself for. No family.” Sam says to an absent brother and imaginary dogs.

“No me,” he whispers to himself.

It’s a long time before Sam falls asleep.

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Sam feels better when he wakes up. His head feels clearer than it has at any time since Dean’s disappearance. Clear and quiet. The only noises that surround him are the Bunker’s ever-present hum of machinery, and the familiar domestic sounds that Sam makes as he putters around in the kitchen, fixing himself some breakfast.

It actually makes him physically jump then, when Lucifer pipes up from the corner.

“You should leave him there, you know.”

Sam jaw sets, as all the anxiety of the night and days before slams back into him as if it’d never been gone.  He grimly carries on filling the coffee machine, pretending Dean’s going to amble in any second, all wrapped up in that dead-man’s robe he loves so much, bleary eyed and jonesing for his first caffeine fix of the day. Sam does his best to ignore the Devil while he works.

Of course it’s impossible.

“Don’t pretend the thought hasn’t crossed your mind, Sammy,” Lucifer continues, and Sam can hear the glee underpinning the smooth tone.

Lucifer knows what Sam’s been thinking, naturally. Lucifer still lives inside Sam’s head, especially when Dean isn’t around. And that is the crux of Sam’s problem, right there. Without Dean to ground him, Sam isn’t sure who he is any more. When Dean had walked away - and hadn’t that been a shock, even though Sam had put on a good front of nonchalance for the benefit of both Cas and Dean himself – when Dean had left after the Gadreel revelation, Sam supposed it was hardly surprising that his makeshift walls started crumbling.

The erosion had been gradual at first, but when Cas had flown off to do whatever it was a fallen angel with stolen grace was called to do, Sam’s insides became fluid, his thoughts ungraspable, slipping though his fingers like water. On the surface he functioned as a normal human being, well as normal as any hunter could ever be, anyhow. But underneath, Sam was no longer the boy with his finger in the dyke, holding back the ocean. The rising tide was slow, unlike before when Dean and Castiel had been sucked into Purgatory, and Sam had thought them both lost forever, but the result was the same.  The dyke had been more than breached, it had totally dissolved, and Sam was slowly drowning.

Luckily, he’d bumped into Dean, on a hunt. Sam hadn’t forgotten, or even forgiven, but the reunion kept him afloat. Dean was Sam’s life-preserver. Dean had once said they keep each other human. Sam thinks it’s at once less and more than that; they keep each other sane.

So now there isn’t really any decision to be made, no matter what Lucifer says. Sam has to try, has do anything he can to get Dean back, and he doesn’t really know if, on balance, he’s doing it more for Dean or for himself.

“And ain’t that a kicker, son?” Bobby said, tipping up his grubby baseball cap to scratch his forehead before slamming it firmly back down onto his head. Sam was grateful it wasn’t the one with the bloody bullet hole in it. This time.

Bobby’s right, it _is_ a kicker. Sam might be totally fucking crazy, but he isn’t blind, or stupid, or even delusional in any sense that matters. He is well aware that this is probably a teensy bit hypocritical of him, to be doing what he accused Dean of doing – acting in his own self-interest. It doesn’t help that he also knows that this is what Dean would want him to do, if Dean didn’t currently think he was someone else entirely.

“I was right. Dean was being selfish, trying to bring me back, never letting me die. Not letting go,” Sam says out loud. It’s a confession and his absolution of himself rolled into one. “But I’m dreaming about him every night, when I’m awake I’m never alone, because... because Dean isn’t here. So I guess I’m selfish too, because I want him back.”

“Oh baby,” Jessica says softly, and kneads the tension out of his shoulders until he relaxes. He indulges himself for a few more minutes before straightening up again.

Dean has to open this door from his side, which means Sam has to find a way to communicate that message to him through the mirror. And somewhere along the way, Sam will need to convince Dean that he is not Jensen Ackles, actor. Sam squares his shoulders and gets to work.

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Gym ‘n’ Trim is deserted when Jensen arrives, one of the things he likes about it. If he hits it just right, he’s got the place to himself, in between the nine-to-fivers and the night shift workers. He heads for one of the empty treadmills and after a moment’s hesitation, plugs his ear-buds directly into the machine instead of listening to his own tunes. He doesn’t admit it, even to himself, but he’s curious. He wants to find out if the soundtrack’s changed as much as the visuals have, but more than that, he wants to know if the man in his dream, the guy who’d made him jump, says anything to him.

The belt whirrs and picks up the pace as the program starts, as always, with the map followed by Hollywood Boulevard. Jensen runs. There’s nothing unusual, nothing different. Hollywood Boulevard morphs into Sunset Boulevard and then the Strip, and he reaches the hill track section without any incidents. Disappointment mixes with puzzlement. There was no shaggy haired dude, and Jensen is starting to think he must be going a little bit crazy.

The gears grind noisily as the treadmill simulates the inclines of the Hollywood Hills, and Jensen is soon too busy concentrating on the burn in his thighs of the uphill section to think about weird anomalies.  As he reaches the crest of the first climb, the tiredness he’d been feeling earlier hits him with the force of a rogue wave, and without thinking, he reaches for the screen’s touch controls. He’ll tamp the level down a couple of notches; no point in killing himself when he’s still got three more days of filming to get through before he can have a rest.

The moment his fingertip touches the screen, his lead foot crunches down on gritty soil, and a blast of dry Californian heat washes over him. His next step confirms to his body what his mind is busy denying. He’s no longer on a treadmill inside an air-conditioned gym at 10 o’clock at night. He’s running on the actual path in the Hollywood Hills. He is overwhelmed with the scents of California, all sunburned soil and sweet chaparral.

Off balance, he realises he’s running too close to the edge of the path, but the realisation comes too late for him to adjust. The ground crumbles as he puts his foot down and he’s falling. He lands painfully on one shoulder, bounces, and then he’s tumbling down the steep slope in an uncontrolled, clumsy roll that his stunt tutor would have been ashamed of. He has time to note – well, fuck that shit – that his shoulder is probably dislocated, and that the exposed skin on his arms is being ripped to shreds by the dry brush. He thinks he hears a distressed male voice shouting “Dean!” before his head whacks into a rock and it’s lights out.

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Sam stares at the empty space where Dean had been a microsecond before and thumps his fist into the ground in frustration. Dust puffs up in a tiny storm cloud under the impact, the motes glittering briefly in the light before they settle again, gone without a trace. Just like Dean.

Riot barks once, sharp and imperative. Sam feels teeth snagging at his sweats and tugging, dragging him back into his own present. From the Hollywood Hills into the bunker. The transition is uncomfortable, disorientating, and very similar to being transported by Castiel, which isn’t surprising he supposes, given that this is an angelic kind of magic.

He’d been so close. Almost within touching distance, talking distance.

Then Dean had been falling, and then his brother was fucking _gone_ again, and Sam was… Sam _is_ back where he started. Back in his bedroom, staring at the blood smeared mirror, not knowing whether Dean is hurt or not.

“That went well,” says Lucifer, leaning forward and breathing frost onto the mirror’s surface.

Sam walks away before Lucifer starts drawing pictures in the ice.

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Jensen surfaces slowly, floating up into the light in gradual increments, unlike the rush he’d felt when the divers had released his legs before when filming this drowning scene. When he finally opens his eyes he’s surprised to see a white ceiling instead of sky. His first thought is to wonder _Where’s the damned lake gone?_ His second is that his head hurts like a motherfucker. He tries to sit up, and hisses in pain as his shoulder is stabbed through with burning agony. He falls back against the soft pillows and breathes through the pain.

That’s when he remembers.

He was in the gym, then he’d touched the screen and …what? The treadmill generated a vortex in time and space and sucked him through the machine into California? Insane. But he remembers so clearly, how the air had been warm and dry and smelled of sage-brush, so different from rain-washed Vancouver. And then he’d fallen down a hill…but that’s impossible. It’s all impossible.

Worry about these weird delusions gives him the motivation to try sitting up again. This time,he gets as far as setting his feet on the floor and trying to stand before dizziness hits him and he’s back on his ass fighting off a wave of nausea. Eric chooses that moment to walk in. Jensen figures he’s not cutting the best picture for an early return to work right now. He can feel how the blood has drained out of his cheeks, and the way the hospital gown is exposing his bare legs as they dangle over the edge of the bed is making him feel vulnerable. So naturally, he covers it with bravado.

He swings his legs back onto the bed and pretends the movement doesn’t set his injuries jangling like someone’s poking him with an electric cattle prod.

“Jensen! You’re awake. Awesome…though, man, you look like crap.” Eric’s saying, as he approaches the bed. Jensen notes with incredulity the bunch of flowers the writer is clutching. Flowers? Really? Does he look like a chick? Jensen opens his mouth to say something, but he’s missed his chance. Kripke’s a roller-coaster of non-stop verbiage.

“What did you do, kid? I’ve heard of people falling off treadmills before, stupid dangerous places, gyms, that’s why you’d never catch me in one, you know? But anyhow, you really did a number on yourself, the doc said it looked like you’d virtually thrown yourself off, must have been running pretty fast, eh? He said you’ve got road rash as well as concussion and a dislocated shoulder.”

Jensen manages to squeeze a few words in when Eric pauses for breath.

“How long have I been out?”

“Well, we can’t be sure because we don’t know what time you got to the gym last night, but the personal trainer, that big blond behemoth, Karl I think his name is, found you about five am, and you’ve been here for about four hours, give or take.”

Jensen put a hand to his head, gingerly touching the bandage that is probably the only thing holding his brains in. Shit. He really had done a number on himself.

Eric fusses over Jensen like a mother hen. Jensen won’t admit he finds it kind of comforting. Reminds him of something; someone… A nurse comes in, takes one look at Jensen’s pallor and injects something into his arm that sends the half memory floating into the non-existent breeze.

“Kim’s rescheduled the shooting while you recover, so we are filming all Amy’s scenes with Lucas, and the parts with the minor characters drowning.”

That’s good news, so Jensen nods, which is a mistake. Pale blue butterflies puff up in a cloud around Eric’s head, as if they are being irresistibly drawn to the golden glow of Kripke’s receding hairline. It’s raining outside, and the drumming on the window pane seems to create a rhythmic backing track to Eric’s words as he starts telling Jensen about his five year plan for Supernatural and for Dean Winchester.

Jensen blames the morphine for what he says next, because normally, he wouldn’t dream of making major suggestions to the writers. He’s an actor, he’s not creative in any way - he just reads the script and does as he’s told. Except. This feels like an imperative.

“Eric,” he says, interrupting Eric in full flow. Part of Jensen watches with fascination as the vibrations of his voice causes the butterflies to transform into a shower of gold, falling like the Vancouver rain. “Have you never thought that there’s something missing from Dean’s life? Not just his father, I think there’s someone else.”

Jensen blinks, slowly. He doesn’t know where that thought came from but suddenly he’s seeing the face in his dream, the guy from the treadmill’s video. Those wide hazel eyes are looking straight into his soul, and he knows he’s right. There is something very important missing from Kripke’s story. Some _one_ vital.

Just saying it out loud makes Jensen feel better. It feels good, like a release of something tight inside his chest. So he talks some more. Leaning forward, eyes shining with enthusiasm, Jensen tells Eric Kripke what  _he_ thinks Dean’s story arc should contain. It takes a while. Apparently Jensen has a lot of opinions on the subject he hadn’t previously been aware of. Whatever they put in his drip is some seriously good shit.

When Jensen wakes up again some time later, Eric has gone and he’s alone. It’s dark outside and everything is quiet except for the soft tapping of the persistent rain on his window. The headache is back, and his shoulder’s throbbing in an unpleasant counter-point. Jensen wonders what on earth he’d said to Kripke. He thinks maybe he went a bit overboard. Slowly snippets come floating back to him.

“Oh my god. I think I gave him about four seasons’ worth of ramblings,” he said to the empty chair.

He flushes a little when he remembers how he’d blathered on about his theory that family, and loyalty, and having to fight for those meant more to Dean than saving random strangers. It would be a miracle if Eric had managed to make sense of anything that had tumbled out of his mouth.

Because thinking back on it now, Jensen certainly can’t.

Why would he feel so strongly about family ties when he can’t even remember the last time he spoke to his own family? In fact, right now, he’s having trouble visualising any of their faces.

Then the morphine drip timer kicks back in and the pain subsides, sliding Jensen into a turbulent sleep full of imaginings. He dreams he’s Dean Winchester. He dreams of flames and loss and a sadness deeper than anything Jensen has ever experienced. He dreams of pain, of failure and guilt and regret. He wakes in the morning with tears still wet on his cheeks and calling out for someone he doesn’t know whose name is Sam.

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After his close encounter with his brother, Sam tries the ritual every day for a week; his forearms are scored with red lines from the knife and ache all the time; so much so that he has to constantly remind himself that the trials are over, that he was healed of all that. In spite of it all, the mirror stays empty of Dean.

He tries to get the portal to link to any other location, but it remains fixed on the gym, so Sam does too. He watches the ebb and flow of the fit and the unfit, the buff and the Stay Puft Marshmallow-men and women, but Dean isn’t among them.

Whatever it was that had allowed Sam to meet up with Dean inside the gym machine’s virtual world only seemed to work when Dean was at the other end, because Sam tries and fails again and again to get to that halfway point – but whether it’s the streets of Los Angeles and the Hollywood Hills, Crystal Cove Beach or the mountain trails that come after that – all are inaccessible, no matter who’s using the programs on the gym equipment.

And all the while Sam can’t get the image out of his head of Dean falling.

On top of it all, when Sam does manage to sleep, he dreams about Dean. He has no way of telling whether the dreams are just that, or if they are visions, or even memories. Or maybe all three ingredients mixed up into one messy casserole, stirred by his subconscious. In his dreams Sam sees Dean, pale and unconscious in a hospital bed. People Sam doesn’t recognise sit at his brother’s bedside and Dean looks small and lost and so young – just like he always does when he’s injured. Sam dreams of Dean with one arm in a sling, prowling round a smart apartment, all chrome and leather and huge picture windows. Dean looks uncomfortable in that swanky setting, out of place and restless. He dreams of Dean on a film set that looks exactly like the one Balthazar had sent them to. Sam even recognises some of the crew, including one of the guys - Keith? Kevin? – who had been shot by the crazy angel who’d followed them through to that other universe. Sam guesses from those differences that this must be yet another alternate dimension and it makes his head hurt to think how many there might be out there. How many possible other lives they could have led.

Sam doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he’s pursuing this when he’d told Dean he wouldn’t try and get him back if something happened. Or maybe he does know, and that is exactly why he’s trying so hard – because he told Dean he wouldn’t, and Dean believed him. Dean fucking believed Sam wouldn’t care enough about him, wouldn’t miss him, didn’t fucking love him enough to search for him and bring him back no matter where Dean ended up or why.

That makes Sam’s heart ache so bad he can’t feel the pain in his arms any more.

Because maybe Dean had been right.

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Two days after being discharged from the hospital, Jensen’s headache goes away, but the feeling of being on the edge of dizziness remains. He says nothing about it though, because enduring a single day of ‘ _rest and recuperation’_ had him climbing the walls of his apartment. So when Kim calls to see how he is, Jensen jumps at the chance of getting back to work. When he arrives on set, after being greeted with an enthusiasm that warms his soul, he’s handed a new version of the script.

“Yeah, apparently Eric had a eureka moment about where the whole season should be going. He managed to sell it to the studio execs, so there’s been some rejigging.”

Jensen starts reading it while he’s walking to his trailer, absorbed within seconds. It’s good. Better than anything Jensen’s doped up ramblings could have come up with. Which isn’t surprising, obviously. Eric is the writer, he’s the one with all the ideas. Jensen’s just an actor who might, just possibly, be cracking up.

Jensen speed reads the revised script, then reads it again. This is going to be interesting. It turns out, Dean’s been suffering from amnesia, due to a head injury on a solo hunt. Jensen can’t help a smile while reading that part. Evidently his own header off the treadmill had provided a spark of inspiration for Kripke. So rescuing Lucas and helping the kid get over the trauma has triggered memories for Dean, and the episode now ends with Dean resolved to head for Stanford, to recruit his estranged little brother into the search for their father.

Apparently, Dean’s brother’s name is Sam.

Jensen stares at the page for a long time.

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Jared Padalecki is perfect for the part of Sam. Jensen isn’t sure why he thinks so, but it’s true. Of course, it isn’t Jensen’s opinion that really matters, but it certainly helps their brotherly dynamic on set when the cameras roll. It’s only after Jared arrives that Jensen realises that he’d been holding back something back from his acting, and that the knot in his stomach, that was so ever-present he was hardly aware of it, has gone. It’s funny really, because Jared is nothing like the overly serious, traumatised character Kripke has created. When Jared is being Jared, he bounces around the set like an exuberant puppy on speed, eating boxes full of luridly coloured candy and dragging Jensen into increasingly ridiculous pranks on crew and cast members, seemingly at random. It’s kind of exhausting.

But when the cameras start rolling, Jared becomes Sam Winchester, and after only a couple of days filming, Jensen’s heart is aching for the character, because it seems to him that Jared is the kind of guy Sam could have been, if fate hadn’t been dead set against the Winchesters from the start.

A few days after Jared’s arrival and the insertion of the younger Winchester into the story, Jensen starts dreaming every night. Vivid, terrifying dreams he can only vaguely remember in the morning but that leave him on edge, unsettled again, filled with yearning for something he can’t define.

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Five days after he’d caught that first, jarring glimpse of Dean, only to lose  him, Sam finds Dean’s body.

Sam’s starting to understand something about the in-between place that seems to be contained somewhere between his mirror and the other world’s gym machines. So, as he’s having no luck contacting his brother again, Sam decides to spend the time exploring In-Between. He likes it there because nobody bothers him. In fact nobody inside the machine world is aware of his presence at all. He’s invisible and inaudible, and after the old lady pushes a shopping trolley right through him, he realises he’s incorporeal too. It’s just like that time Pamela sent him and Dean outside of their bodies to talk to that sad, dark-eyed ghost-kid, what was his name? Yeah, Cole, that’s it.

Except now Dean isn’t there to make Sam uncomfortable with stupid jokes, getting all inappropriate and handsy with his ethereal form.

With nothing to do but search and think, Sam’s been wondering about the fact that this time, Dean appears to be occupying Jensen’s body, rather than replacing the actor physically, as had happened when Balthazar had done his meddling. Which raises the question – where was Dean’s real body? Was Jensen’s soul, psyche, whatever, living inside Dean’s vessel in yet another parallel universe?

Sam works his way methodically through the various locations, always on the look out for Dean in any form, of course, but also alert for any other anomalies. As much as you can search for weirdness in a place that isn’t real, where you yourself are the equivalent of a ghost. The more time he spends In-Between, the more he comes to appreciate its separateness. There is something calming about being able to just investigate, without having to interact with anyone.

He especially loves the beach part of the program. It’s Crystal Cove Beach, with the sun always setting to the west, the same sparse scattering of joggers and walkers, the tide always on the turn. Sam hasn’t yet worked out if the tide ever actually comes in, or whether time moves forward at all when Sam isn’t there. Is the cat in the box alive or dead? Nobody knows… The air is fresh with the tang of salt; the sea breeze keeps the same gentle pressure on his skin, a hint of coolness to counter the dying warmth of the sun. Jessica is the only ghost who follows him here. Maybe because it’s California.

She’s here now, she takes his hand and leads him towards the water’s edge - and that’s when he finds the body. Dean’s body.

The body is lying above the high tide line like so much flotsam. Sam’s heart leaps in his chest with fear.

 

Jess stays with him as he crouches down feeling for Dean’s pulse, a quiet comforting presence. There is a heartbeat, slow but strong and Sam can breathe again. He refuses to acknowledge how relieved he had been to find that Dean's body, out of all the people populating this space, is actually solid. As always in Sam’s life, Dean must have mass. Jessica’s fingertips rest gently on his shoulder, and he finds it reassuring, even though he knows she isn’t real. Dean’s skin is sun-kissed-warm and Sam revels in the faintest throb of blood moving under his touch.

But it’s just an empty shell. Unoccupied. Vacant.

He should have expected that, he supposes, but somehow he’s never ready to see Dean lifeless. Ridiculous, considering the number of times Sam has been witness to Dean dying, an experience that is hard to forget. But it is always utterly wrong. Dean is made to be loud and in constant movement, like an amplification of Newton’s first Law. Dean is frustrating and annoying and fucking beautiful.

“I wonder why the other guy’s spirit isn’t inhabiting Dean’s body,” Jess muses. Sam doesn’t have an answer, and to be frank, doesn’t really care where Jensen Ackles’s soul is. It’s an intellectual challenge, sure, but not his concern. Sam’s thighs tense as he gathers Dean’s empty shell in his arms. He’s not sure what to do with the body, but leaving it lying here on the beach doesn’t feel right. Dean’s going to need it when Sam gets him back. A large Labrador galumphs past, running through Sam’s leg but paradoxically kicking sand into Sam’s face before he can stand up. Sam allows Jess to brush it off, his hands full of Dean.

He concentrates on removing his hand from the mirror. It’s hard to get his head round it when in one dimension his hands are occupied, but he eventually manages to break the connection. When he blinks he’s back in his room in the bunker, and Dean still a dead weight in his arms.

Sam sags a little in relief. He hadn’t been sure his attempt to bring Dean’s body back would work. He hesitates before carrying Dean over to his own bed and carefully laying his brother down. Dean’s limbs are loose and relaxed, his face slack, the freckles standing out and his thick eyelashes stark against his pallor.  This is nothing like death and nothing like sleep and Sam can’t get a grip how he feels.

Gadreel did something twisty and strange to separate Dean from his own body. Because Sam could see that that actor, Jensen Ackles, didn’t bear any of the scars of Dean’s life, but is still, clearly, recognisably Dean. Now he has Dean’s body with all its marks of Dean’s life on it, all he has to do is find out what Gadreel did, and reverse it.

Kevin sighs.

“More research I suppose? Great. Just don’t expect my Mom to be happy about this.”

Sam follows Kevin back to the library.

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Jensen is losing himself, and he’s scared. This has never happened to him before. He’s always been able to separate himself from the characters he’s played, to shed the fictional persona at the end of the day when he walked off the set. He’s a professional, dammit - but this is different. Dean Winchester has gotten under his skin, and when Dean bleeds, Jensen bleeds too. He’s too invested, emotionally committed, and if he was a real Hollywood actor he’d be hiring a shrink, lying on that leather couch and pouring out his fears in a torrent every night.

But he’s just a good ole Texas boy, so he bottles it up and tries to deal.

The character bleed intensifies after the concussion and Sam’s arrival. No, he means Jared’s. Except he kind of doesn’t, because Jared is too perfect at being Dean’s little brother.

They film a couple of extra scenes for the Pilot, to introduce Sam’s character, and explain why Dean’s hunting alone during  _Wendigo_ and  _Dead in the Water_ , then Dean fetches Sam from Stanford in  _Phantom Traveller_ and the brothers start searching for their father together. It’s their first encounter with a demon too, which for some reason leaves Jensen rattled.

Jensen’s nights become restless and disturbed again, his dreams fretful and violent when he does manage to fall asleep. He buys an expensive bottle of malt then leaves it on his nightstand, unopened. Its amber glow distorts the digital display on his alarm clock in a vaguely accusing manner.

“You look fucking awful, man. What’re you doing to yourself?” Jared says towards the end of their first week shooting together. He’s munching on something rainbow coloured and sticky that’s turned his tongue multi-coloured. Jensen knows this because Jared keeps waggling his tongue at him, of course. He’s amazed at the ease in which the two of them have fallen into such a close relationship, both on and off set.

“I dunno,” Jensen says, rubbing at the back of his head, running his hand over the bristles of his recent buzz-cut. It’s a Dean-gesture, not his own, but he doesn’t notice. “I think I should get back to some regular exercise. That was helping me sleep last time, before I fell off the stupid treadmill.”

“Cool!” Jared bounces on his toes like an excited pre-schooler, albeit a giant one. “Want some company while you’re training?”

“Sure, why not.”

Jensen says yes, but a tiny part of him is reluctant to have Jared with him in the gym. He doesn’t want to think too deeply about why that might be, so he ignores the feeling and the two of them stop off at Gym’n’Trim late that night after shooting ends.

Predictably, Jared loves the fact that they have the gym to themselves and wants to try out everything. Jensen happily spots for Jared while the younger man lifts some ridiculous amount, but declines to risk his own healing shoulder on weights. He finds himself eyeing up the treadmill with some trepidation, unsure whether what he’s feeling is down to his fall, or the fear that he might experience another delusional trip into the world of the machine video. How fucking ridiculous has his life become that he’s worrying about stepping onto a piece of gym equipment? He starts when Jared claps him on the back on the way past him before jumping onto one of the treadmills.

“Are you okay, man?” Jared asks, his expression all friendly concern, and Jensen gives himself a mental shake.

“Yeah, sure. Nothing wrong with my legs,” he says.

Jensen climbs up and starts punching in the virtual run programme, automatically selecting his usual options without even thinking about it. The belt starts moving and Jensen starts to jog. Jared is already running full out, his big size thirteen Nikes thudding down and making the gym’s sprung floor judder in sympathy. Jensen wonders idly if the treadmill is built to withstand these sorts of impacts, and grins.

“Something funny?”

“Unless watching a sasquatch try to run is funny, then no,” Jensen replied, getting a punch to the arm (fortunately on his good side) in reward.

“Hey! Channelling your character much, there, Jen? You know I’m not really Sam Winchester, don’t you?”

Jensen laughs. Of course he knows this happy-go-lucky, unscarred, innocent kid isn’t his little brother.

Jared never stops talking, the running not affecting his breathing one tiny bit. Jensen listens with half his attention on the small screen in front of him. He watches as the LA streets give way to the Hollywood Hills to the Crystal Cove without any sign of anything untoward. Once the video reaches the beach, though, Jensen’s focus sharpens because the sun has nearly disappeared below the horizon, and the wide strip of sand the camera usually pans along is probably half as wide as it has been on previous occasions. The tide that has never moved before is coming in.

Senses on high alert, Jensen waits to see what happens next. His heart rate rockets, much higher than the effort he’s putting in should warrant, then he completely loses track of the conversation a few seconds later, when he spots the guy. His guy, the mystery man who Jensen realises isn’t a mystery any more, because Jensen  _recognises_ him. At the same moment he recognises himself.

That guy is the real Sam Winchester. Dean’s brother.  _His_ brother that he’s been missing like a phantom limb, never even realising it until now. Without a second thought Dean reaches out and touches the picture on the screen in front of him and the world dissolves. He doesn’t hear Jared shouting ‘Jensen!’ or feel the other man grabbing his arm, just the sound of waves breaking and then the cold of the salt water as he plummets into the ocean.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15778732435)

After the frustrating days of no contact and no Dean, finally there he is, entering the gym. Sam almost doesn’t notice that Dean isn’t alone this time, so it’s a total shock when he finally registers the other guy with his brother. It’s like looking into a mirror that only shows a past that never happened. The guy is a younger, carefree version of himself and Sam is frozen by the unfamiliar familiarity. The uncertainty that had gripped him when he’d first seen Dean in this other dimension comes back tenfold.

What if Dean really would be better off staying in this young actor’s perfect body? Maybe Dean could find true happiness living someone else’s life, could benefit from the healing that must come from inhabiting a body that once housed a soul unblemished by Hell and Purgatory and betrayal.

What if Sam had the same opportunity, being presented to him now?

To live in a world where there was no Hell, no Heaven, where angels and demons, ghosts and ghouls existed only in stories; a world where nobody needed saving. To inhabit a meat-suit that had never tasted demon blood or been required to kill anything more evil than a wasp. To have a body that was  _clean_ .

Sam watches the two men exercising for a long time before he presses his bloody palm to the glass and opens the door to In-Between.

The first thing Sam notices on arriving through the portal is that the sun has nearly disappeared and night is falling over the California coast. It gives the place an ominous cast that wasn’t there on his previous visits, and he doesn’t like it. The temperature is dropping with the sun, and a chill breeze is ruffling his hair. It blows sand and salt against his exposed skin.

The beach is empty, no dog walkers or joggers or random tourists. Just Sam, the soaring sea gulls and the incoming sea.

Sam fingers the knife in his pocket and hopes this is going to work. In-Between might have been of interest for a while, but it isn’t somewhere Sam wants to be trapped forever. Even if it is with Dean - of which there is no guarantee. Sam has no way of opening the door from the dimension where Dean is now, all he has is this – the ability to enter a halfway point and the hope that Dean will be drawn through again like before. Whatever happens, whatever choices are made, Sam doesn’t want either of them to be stuck here, where they would be nothing more than living ghosts.

Fortunately, Sam doesn’t have long to sit around imagining worst-case scenarios.

In that instant,Dean materialises.  Like last time, Sam helpessly watches as Dean falls, straight down the sandy cliffs into the sea – unlike last time, however, Dean’s apparently attached to someone else. The double splash is considerable, and the water must be deeper there than Sam had thought, because it takes a gut-wrenchingly long time for either man to break the surface again. To make matters worse, the place the two of them came through is several yards down the beach from Sam, who takes off at a run the moment he sees Dean hit the water. Trust his brother to find a weak point between the worlds right where it is most hazardous.

It’s hard to see with the fading light and the cresting waves, but finally Sam spots one dark head, then a second, bobbing around in the water. Sam reaches the water’s edge and without hesitation plunges in. He reaches the two men in a couple of strong strokes, and sees his own eyes, wide and frightened, as the younger guy turns towards Sam. Jared, that was his name, Sam remembers.

_Help_ . Jared’s mouth forms around the words, the sound lost in the crash of surf and the water in Sam’s ears.  _Help us_ . Sam can see Dean’s eyes are closed, his head’s lolling against Jared, who’s keeping Dean’s head above the water. Fuck. Sam grabs onto Jared’s shoulder and relies on the actor to keep his brother safe while he tows the two of them to shore. Those few yards feel like infinity, the doubled up weight and the turbulence of the sea taking its toll. Relief washes over Sam like the biggest wave of all when he feels the sand of the beach grinding underneath his shoulders. With one last effort, he hauls himself and his two passengers farther up the beach and out of the surf.

Sam and Jared both move at the same time, and nearly clash heads as they lean over Dean’s inert body.

“Dean!” “Jensen!”

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15778732365) Dean feels like he’s drowning. He can’t breathe and there is a roaring in his ears and holy fuck, that’s because he actually is in the sea and drowning. His mouth is full of salt and there’s a small part of him that is thinking that’s a good thing, keep the demons out, when his head breaks the surface of the water. Only for a wave to hit him in the face full on, sending him back under only having had time to draw a single choking breath. A strong current seizes him and flings him around so he’s no longer sure which way is up, at which point it all becomes academic, because he’s slammed head first into something very hard, and blacks out before he even has time to think  _oh not again_ .

Given the circumstances, Dean isn’t expecting to wake up at all, so his first thought on opening his eyes is to look for Death, or at the very least, a Reaper. Finding two anxious Sams bending over him instead is so far down his list of possible scenarios he doesn’t even find it surprising. The imperative to hack up of a lungful of seawater does take him by surprise though, and coughing his way out of that he finds one of the Sams is now holding him upright in his arms. He deduces from that this is  _his_ Sammy, which makes the other one Jared Padathingy. The actor guy.

Memories come back stronger than any tide, flooding into all the empty spaces inside his head. Why are there empty spaces? He doesn’t know, and pain stops him speculating. It’s enough that has all that history back (and what a history it is too), and for the first time in months he feels like Dean Winchester. Compared to that certainty, the fact that what he  _doesn’t_ know could fill a book the size of Lord of the Rings seems less important. Though it would be nice to find out how he got here, and where here is.

The other Sam sees Dean’s eyes are open and says  _Jensen_ just as the bigger Sam who’s holding him says  _Dean,_ and eases him into a more comfortable position; still with those big arms wrapped tight round him and Dean doesn’t have the energy to object right now, so sue him if he doesn’t relax just a little bit and enjoy it.

“Where t’fuck?” Dean manages to rasp out, and of course it’s his Sam who answers. And of course, his answer is virtually incomprehensible.

“I’m calling it In-Between. It seems to be an inter-dimensional loop, trapped between our world and the world Jared and Jensen are from. It was lucky this was here because otherwise I had no way of contacting you.”

Man, but Dean’s head hurts. But it’s kind of comforting in its familiarity, all the same.

Jared starts asking questions, Sam answering in what might as well be Anglo Saxon riddles for all the comprehension Dean’s brain was doing right now. One thing Dean does notice over the percussion in his head though. His feet are getting wet. Wetter. It seems a trivial thing to be bothering about until he finally does the math. Wet feet means the tide must be coming in.

“We need to move,” Dean says, then repeats it, louder, when the two Sams don’t pay him any mind. He struggles to stand and fails miserably, but his Sam eventually gets on the case. There’s a flurry of activity and then somehow, all three of them are climbing up a steep and crumbling sandy path. Dean isn’t so much climbing as being half dragged, half carried, but he tries to take some of the strain off Sam during the dragging part, and counts that as a win.

The three of them collapse into a panting heap when they reach the summit of the cliff, and Dean finds himself with all the strength and coordination of a ragdoll, too weak to even lift his head. Sam has hold of his T-shirt – and where the hell are the rest of his clothes? He’s wearing  _shorts_ for fuck’s sake – and is talking to him. Dean thinks this must be important, so he hones in on Sam’s serious features and listens as best he can through water-bunged ears.

In spite of his best intentions, Dean only grasps every other word. Something about Purgatory, and souls, and Benny. Honestly, he has no idea what is going on. He just nods – a mistake as it feels like his head’s about to drop off – and tells Sam yes. Like he always does.

“Whatever you have to do, Sammy,” he says, “Take whatever you need.”  _Get us home_ .

Dean doesn’t flinch when Sam pulls out his bowie knife, and holds steady when Sam draws the blade across his forearm. He vaguely hears the other Sam – no, Jared – shouting a protest, and his Sam saying something reassuring, then Sam is pressing their bloody arms together and the world is dissolving into fire.

_Huh. Here we go again._

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

Jared is in a state of suspended disbelief, right up until the moment the bigger, older and, quite frankly, fucking terrifying version of himself takes out a huge knife and starts cutting Jensen’s arm. By then it’s too late to stop whatever scary shit the guy is doing. For a big dude he sure can move fast.

For some reason, seeing two men light up from the inside out like a pair of Roman candles shocks Jared more than anything else that has happened on this ride into crazy. He barely has the presence of mind to catch Jensen’s body when the light snaps off like someone flipped a switch, and Sam staggers backwards, breathing as heavily as if he’d just finished a marathon. It’s like someone flipped Jensen’s switch off at the same time as the light, because he just crumples. Jared takes all his weight and gently lowers him down, holding his friend in his arms just like the other man – Sam – had been doing just moments ago. Sam isn’t showing any sign of the possessiveness he’d displayed towards Jensen before, in fact he no longer seems interested in either of them. It looks like Sam is just going to fuck off now he’s done whatever the hell he’s done to Jensen, because he has his back turned and is walking away. Which makes Jared furious.

“Hey!”  Jared’s shout stops Sam taking another step away, and when Sam spins around, Jared realises from his expression that the guy had actually forgotten they even existed. At least he has the grace to look apologetic about it.

“You can’t just leave us here like this,” Jared tells him, quiet but firm, and Sam nods wearily. To Jared’s relief, Sam walks back and kneels down beside them. Sam looks at Jensen’s pale face for a long moment, and Jared can’t read his expression at all. Regret? Remorse? Or sadness mixed with a hint of envy? Even though Sam’s face is so like his own, Jared can’t tell.

“I think Jensen should be in there; he should be fine,” Sam says, and Jared doesn’t understand what Sam means by the first part, but takes comfort from the latter.

“That’s great,” Jared says, unable to stop the note of bitterness creeping into his voice, “but how do I get him home?”

“You won’t like it, and I can’t promise it will work, but the odds are in your favour. There is nothing to bind the two of you here, and everything calling you back to your home, so…”

Jared listens carefully, takes the bloody knife Sam Winchester gives him, then stares into the dark vacuum that Sam leaves behind when he disappears.

Jared sits on the prickly sea grasses with the Californian night breeze blowing his salt-stiffened hair dry, and holds onto Jensen as if his friend is the only safe and normal thing left in his world.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

The first thing he notices is the warmth, then the brightness of the light. The air tastes sweet on his tongue, no trace of bitter salt. He looks around and sees nothing that he recognises, and yet everything feels familiar. It smells like home in a way that no place has ever done since Dean was four years old and his childhood burnt away.

Any sense of urgency, all hint of worry drop away and Dean truly relaxes for what is probably the first time in his life since the death of their Mom. Is this what Heaven should really have been like? He doesn’t know or care.

Wherever this is, Dean feels no need to do anything except be. At any other time, in any other place, he’d have laughed and made some joke about Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, but now, there’s no need to be defensive. It’s as if all negativity has been drained out of him and he is at peace. Finally, here’s the rest when he is done.

There’s no sense of time passing, so Dean has no idea how long he’s been waiting when Sam appears. Somehow the light gets brighter in Sam’s presence, and Dean realises where this must be.

“Am I…inside you?”

“Yup.” Sam pauses a beat, then raises an eyebrow. “What, no innuendo about it making me uncomfortable?”

“I guess not.” Dean shrugs.

“You seem very laid back about all this,” Sam gestures vaguely around. Dean shrugs again. It seems being here isn’t doing anything to expand his body language vocabulary, but Sam is right. He doesn’t remember ever feeling this calm. Except for when he’s on Ketamine, but that doesn’t count as that always comes with a side order of serious injury.

“I like it here,” he says, at exactly the same time Sam says, “You know you can’t stay.”

There’s an impasse. They stare at each other until Dean has to look away. Those five little words have shot his equilibrium down, and anxiety returns in full force. Shadows gather at Dean’s edges.

“This could only ever be temporary, Dean. Carrying your soul inside me. A human body is only made to house one soul, who knows what two will do to me?”

Dean looks up at that. Sam’s right, having him here could be damaging Sam, harming him in ways Dean couldn’t imagine. Sullying him with Dean’s brokenness. Why would Sam want to be this close to Dean when Sam didn’t even want to be his brother any more?

“Shut up, dude, don’t be so fucking stupid,” Sam says, startling Dean out of his downward spiral. “I can hear what you are thinking, your soul’s inside mine, remember? Not that it’s any different now from how we usually work. I always carry a little part of you around inside me, you know that, don’t you?”

Dean can see Sam wants him to say yes, but he can’t do it. Sam, fuck him, actually looks disappointed. Wounded, even, by Dean’s silence. Oh man, his little brother and his sad, sad eyes. Even here, when neither of them have an actual body to feel the compulsion, Sam can make him do and say things he doesn’t want to. So he does. He blurts it out quickly, as if there’s a chance Sam won’t notice.

“I can’t go back, Sam. I can’t live like that. Where you and me aren’t family. What’s the point?”

“I haven’t forgiven you for allowing Gadreel to possess me, for deceiving me.” Sam holds a hand up when Dean opens his mouth to protest. “But I was lying to you, and to myself, saying I wouldn’t do anything to bring you back, because of course I would. You are my brother, nothing can change that. And you might be a selfish dick sometimes, but so am I.”

Dean doesn’t understand what’s brought about Sam’s change of heart, but he’ll take whatever he can get. Especially if it means he gets Sam.

He does get Sam, doesn’t he? Isn’t that how the story ends?

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

Sam’s back in the Bunker and his arm is burning with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s clichéd but true. He doesn’t remember what it felt like to have an angel inside him, but he does remember how it felt to have Lucifer inside him, and this is totally different.

He stops with his right hand on the handle of Dean’s door, savouring the way Dean’s soul is sending heat through his veins. Sam is warm for the first time since he returned from the Cage, and the Bunker is silent. Peaceful. For the first time, Sam thinks the place smells like home.

Sam understands his brother now, has him nestled close to his heart in a way that was never possible before, and he’s filled with a terrifying reluctance to give that up. If he opens the door, Dean’s body will be there, and Sam will have to let Dean go. Holding on hurts, but letting go is unthinkable.

All Sam’s ghosts are quiet, there is no one there to help him make the right decision, no inner voice telling him what to do.

Except one.

“I stopped you ending it all, Sammy, and maybe the method I chose was the wrong one - but I can’t be sorry for that. Yeah, it was selfish; I just couldn’t face living without you again. Been there, done that.” Dean smiles at him, his expression rueful. Dean lifts his palm up to cup Sam’s cheek, mirroring Sam’s gesture when they’d spoken in that forest, before Sam had walked into the cabin to talk to Death.

“I’d be happy to stay here with you forever, just a voice in your head. Soul mates they said, didn’t they? It’s better than I deserve. Whatever you decide, Sammy, I’ve got your back. Always.”

“I know you have, Dean,” Sam whispers. “I know.”

Sam opens the door.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15780306292)

 

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